1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electronic shelf label (ESL) system, and more particularly, to an ESL system using a smart phone capable of increasing convenience of a consumer by operating the smart phone in connection with the ESL system, and an operating method thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
An ESL system is a system that guides price information on products by operating together with a point-of-sale (POS) device using ESL tags and assists in purchasing products and operating a store by additionally displaying various promotion information such as a unit price, a discount price, a normal price, a production display position mark, point information, a display amount, and the like.
Generally, the ESL system is configured so as to allocate time slots to a plurality of ESL tags and be waken up only during the allocated time slots to perform wireless communication with an ESL server. The number of ESL tags included in the ESL system is rapidly increased depending on a size of a store to which the ESL system is applied. Therefore, in this case, a coordinator, a router, or the like, relays between the ESL server and the ESL tag.
In the ESL tag (electronic label) included in the ESL system as described above, price information is continuously updated periodically or aperiodically. The price information is updated in a scheme of receiving data from a gateway connected to the ESL tag (electronic label) and displaying the corresponding data on a display.
Meanwhile, in the ESL system according to the related art, as generally described for example in Korean Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 10-2010-0041969 and Korean Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 10-2011-0058100, there are devices providing information on products within a large store. Therefore, consumers may obtain simple information on products through these devices. However, it is difficult for the consumers to recognize where these products are exactly positioned and optimal paths through which they move from their current positions to positions of the products. Therefore, the consumers experience troublesome moving processes and consume a large time until they arrive at places at which products desired by them are disposed.